I seem to be back at the point where these are twice fortnightly. I wonder how long that'll last!

Man v. Food

Have you seen �Man vs. Food�? It has been playing almost non-stop on Dave (the UK�s favourite TV channel amongst viewers who have already tried BBC1, BBC2, ITV1 and Channel 4 and don�t really like what�s on them) at the moment. The format of the show is pretty basic. A man who (inexplicably) is not hugely overweight moves from US city to US city, taking on the various �challenge� dishes put forward by restaurants. These dishes invariably contain their weight somewhere in the name, involve deep frying somewhere in the recipe, and have been successfully eaten by only a handful of people. For example, your man may have an hour to consume Tastebud Irene�s 72oz Southern Fried Chili Chicken Donut Challenge (with a bucket of fries). Invariably, Tastebud Irene�s will be a restaurant founded in the 70s by the titular Irene following the death of her husband (or man she had corresponded with whilst he was awaiting execution on death row, and subsequently married via CCTV). The recipe will be something like: flash-fry a chicken carcass and stuff with chili. Wrap in bacon, and marinate in chili sauce. Mince the whole lot and cook into a donut. Serve on a bed of a T-Bone steaks, and lightly dust with Irene�s �Secret blend� of spices (chili powder).

Now the guy sits down in the crowded restaurant and, egged on by a large crowd of drunken locals, has to push half his own body weight in something akin to napalm down his gullet without it touching his lips, or indeed any part of him where there are intact nerve endings. This includes his hands, mind, because when his eyes inevitably start watering, he will need to rub them. If he has touched anything that has come out of Irene�s kitchen before rubbing them, he will go blind. And I dread to think what happens when he needs to take a pee!

Of course, if he succeeds, he gets a certificate, his photo on the Wall of Insane Diners, his meal for free, and triple heart bypass surgery. Watching him doing this week after week, I can�t help thinking there must be very few major blood vessels left in his body that haven�t been robbed out to bypass those leading to his heart.

I�ve made �Man vs Food� sound a little tacky . . . I know. Even for someone as highbrow and intellectual as I am, it still makes for very good 'guilty pleasure' telly, even if you only watch it to see the world�s first on-screen fatal myocardial infarction. It�s bound to happen.

Going for an English

I�m reminded of a �Man vs Food� incident in my favourite Indian restaurant some years back. On the next table to us were a couple of guys, one of whom was sober (probably driving), and had eaten Indian food before � let�s call him Ernie. The other was happily drunk, and had taken the opportunity to join his mate for a curry purely to keep the night going and drink more. He had never been to an Indian before � let�s call him Eric. Drunk enough to be feeling a little macho, Eric pestered Ernie to tell him �what�s the hottest thing they do?� Sensibly, Ernie replied, �it�s a Phal, but you won�t eat it. Have a Madras if you want something hot�. But Eric is having none of this, and insists he can handle the Phal. Ernie tries in vain to talk him out of it, saying he won�t be able to eat it, until Eric says �I bet you a fiver I can.� To quote AJ Rimmer:- I think it was Saint Francis of Assisi that once said, �never give a sucker an even break�, and so Ernie, sensing repayment of his petrol money, accepts the bet. The Phal arrives (looking a colour that could be described as �fluorescent�), and Eric makes an enthusiastic start. The first oversized forkful goes in, and a little grin plays imperceptibly at the corner of his lips. �This isn�t so bad�, he�s no doubt thinking. The second and third go in, and the imperceptible grin is becoming perceptible. By about the sixth, the grin is fading. Breathing in is beginning to be a process not only of getting oxygen into the lungs, but of cooling the mouth. The pace hasn�t slowed yet, though. The next stage is sweat appearing on the brow. Doubts are starting to creep in. This is going to be tough. �Go to your happy place,� he�s thinking. �Just keep shovelling it in.�

By the time he�s finished, I�d say about a third of the curry, Eric is struggling, and this is evident to Ernie. �You�re not going to eat that, are you?�

�I am, yes.�

�are you hell.�

And so on until, out of nowhere the ante is upped to a tenner.

Eric eats the next third with renewed vigour, forcing it in and stoically ignoring the pain. Ernie never once looks worried though and, sure enough, about two-thirds of the way through the curry, Eric bows to the inevitable, and hurries away to the gents to be sick.

Food one � Eric nil.

By the way, the topic of this section is the title of a very famous sketch from the BBC show �Goodness Gracious Me�. It can be seen